[Guest Post] Project 365 – Lily Fox

This is Kiri. He’s a Bisharp. He has a fairly normal life, insofar as plush Pokemon go, but for reasons best known to no-one, his Mun has decided to document his day to day misadventures on Instagram for the sake of posterity in a piece of photographic madness known to the world as Project 365.

Last year, the Mun was treated on Facebook to a picture a day from various friends of what they got up to, from conferences to pets to glasses of beer to world sports events to the state of their kitchen and infinitely more, TMI be hanged. Everyone’s lives looked very interesting and there’s something impressive about having the stamina to find something, anything, to take a photo of every single day for over three hundred and fifty days including Christmas, sick days and days where you just can’t be bothered.

I do lots of things, thought the Mun. Kiri would surely love to pose in ridiculous situations not befitting his dignity at all for the sake of being plastered all over social media, right? I have staying power and creativity and enthusiasm and all those other things required for something like this! I can do it, of course! And Erin was joining in too so we can suffer – I mean, discover the world – together.

Well, it turns out the Mun doesn’t do all that much, especially in the cold winter months where taking photos of flowers and blue skies and trees is a LOT less viable when it’s pouring with rain and the heating is on inside. There’s a lot of photos of dinner and the office desk going on. There is the occasional highlight of things extraordinary – good and bad, since the Mun was flooded as well as attending BBC stargazing events – but generally it’s – well, difficult, to find things to pose Kiri with.

Which of course, is presumably the point, because whatever else this has done it’s made the Mun actually be forced to look at things. Flowers and murals in passages and actually, attending BBC stargazing events which in another world the Mun thought it was too late and cold and she was tired and would give this one a miss. In this world she went because hey, it’d make a great photo. It made several great photos and she got to hold 1000000 year old rock and watch oxygen be solidified, something you definitely don’t see every day. And even when all Kiri can do is hold a strawberry and eat a cupcake, it at least makes you consider the strawberry and cupcake, not only for the joy of having a strawberry and a cupcake (quite a joyful experience on a long day) but the more nebulous challenge of posing Bisharp, strawberry and cupcake in something vaguely aesthetically pleasing, even if the backdrop is the filing trays that the Mun can’t be bothered to lift out of shot (they’re heavy. Don’t judge). I suppose you could say it’s improving photographic skill although in the case of the Mun that isn’t hard as the bar was set quite low to start with. But it’s getting her thinking, attending, admiring, designing. And buying cupcakes, so other people benefit too.

As for today – day 49, I reckon – well, there’s a few ideas. The Mun is always horribly aware of the day ticking down – I’ve got ‘tilMIDNIGHT! Time’s not up yet! – but something’s bound to crop up and hey, it WILL get easier in the summer when the light lasts longer and photos can be taken after 4pm when the sun sets and outdoors photos are an option and the pathetic flash on the camera phone can be turned off and ultimately, exploring becomes more appealing. After all, I guess that’s the idea, to explore the world you live in, get to know and appreciate it, even the small things. Especially the cupcakes.